Philippine villagers who had evacuated their homes and taken refuge in emergency shelters were among at least 74 people killed Tuesday when rain from Typhoon Bopha cascaded down a mountain, swamping shelters and an army truck carrying soldiers and civilians. "They thought that they were already secure in a safe area, but they didn't know the torrents of water would go their way," Gov. Arturo Uy said of the townspeople of Andap, in New Bataan, Compostela Valley province. An estimated 60,000 people fled their homes for emergency shelters, more than 100 domestic flights were canceled and two provinces were without power. In the town of Cateel in Davao Oriental province, 23 people drowned or died under fallen trees or in collapsed houses, and three children died in a mudslide.

NATO on Tuesday approved a plan to deploy Patriot anti-missile systems in southern Turkey to shield the country from cross-border attacks by Syria. The Patriots are to be used only for defensive purposes, and NATO stressed that they would not be used to support a no-fly zone over Syria. But the move brings the U.S. and 27 allies a step closer to intervention in the Syrian war. "We stand with Turkey in the spirit of strong solidarity," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. "To anyone who would want to attack Turkey, we say, 'Don't even think about it!'" The Patriots will be programmed to intercept weapons in Turkish airspace only, so they could not be used to thwart a conventional or chemical attack within Syria's borders. In suburban Damascus on Tuesday, a mortar apparently fired by the opposition struck a ninth-grade classroom, killing 29 students, according to state media, or 13 students, according to an Education Ministry official.

Iran on Tuesday showed off a drone it says it captured from the U.S. in Iranian airspace, but the U.S. Navy said all its drones in the Persian Gulf were "fully accounted for." The Navy did say it had lost drones of this type, a Boeing ScanEagle, in the water in years past, and Iran may have recovered it long ago. "Our operations in the Gulf are confined to internationally recognized waters and airspace," said a spokesman for the Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain, Cmdr. Jason Salata. Other countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates, also have drones of this type. The naval chief of the Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Ali Fadavi, said, "The U.S. drone, which was conducting a reconnaissance flight and gathering data over the Persian Gulf in the past few days, was captured by the Guard's navy air defense unit as soon as it entered Iranian airspace." On state TV, two Guard commanders examined what appeared to be an intact ScanEagle and showed where it entered Iran's airspace on a map. Printed on the map in Farsi and English were the words "We shall trample on the U.S."

New York police Tuesday were seeking a man who argued with another a day earlier in a Manhattan subway before pushing him onto the tracks, where he was killed by an oncoming train in front of horrified witnesses. The New York Post was widely criticized for printing a front-page picture of the man staring at the train with his hands on the platform wall as if trying to climb out -- under the headline "Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die." The freelance photographer who took the picture, R. Umar Abbasi, said he took it hoping that the flash would alert the train driver to stop. The wife of the victim, 58-year-old Ki-Suk Han of Queens, said she argued with her husband earlier and tried to call him afterward, but he never picked up. A video released by police shows Han and a much taller man in a knit cap and white T-shirt arguing. Some witnesses told police the pusher had been harassing people and Han intervened.

Drop by the Netherlands during the holidays and you might be shocked to see that Santa's little helpers here wear blackface, Afro wigs and thick red lipstick -- and go by the name "Black Pete." Most Dutch people say the holiday tradition of "Zwarte Piet" is harmless, and that he does not represent any race, but a growing number are starting to question whether this tradition should go the way of America's "Little Black Sambo"-themed restaurants. "There is more opposition to Zwarte Piet than you might think," says Jessica Silversmith, director of the Anti-Discrimination Bureau for Amsterdam. "It's not only Antilleans or Surinamers who are complaining. It's all kinds of Dutch people." Apparently Black Pete debuted as an African servant in an 1850 book, though some people now claim his face is black from the soot of climbing down chimneys (which hardly explains the Afro and big lips). A TV documentary this weekend laid out the arguments against Zwarte Piet, and the country's widely read news blog "GeenStijl" has launched a blistering campaign against him, saying: "Zwarte Piet is nothing more than a repulsive parody of a slave, fine-tuned to indoctrinate schoolchildren into the finer points of racism."

The Wire, a summary of top national and world news stories from the Associated Press and other wire services, moves weekdays. Contact Karl Kahler at 408-920-5023; follow him at twitter.com/karl_kahler.